


shorts

by zeldalookslonely



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24338377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldalookslonely/pseuds/zeldalookslonely
Summary: ficlets originally posted on tumblr.  every chapter is complete and unrelated.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 47





	1. finding your place

“Do you remember,” Aziraphale says, “when I was sent after you in the 80s? The 1980s.”

“Vaguely,” Crowley says, slouching to the floor and kicking his legs up onto the sofa cushion - all without spilling a drop of wine, thank you very much.

“Gabriel descended in person to scold me about it. _Higher than average demonic activity levels on the coast! The demon Crowley is up to something especially sinister! Urgent order to thwart and protect!_ So I follow you and when I find you, all you’re doing is--”

“Disappearing bookmarks!” Crowley recalls, delightedly. “I forgot about that!”

“Disappearing bookmarks,” Aziraphale repeats, a small, indulgent smile on his face. Maybe a little pride.

Crowley closes his eyes and relaxes impossibly further, stretching his spine long. That was a particularly pleasant summer; they’d gotten a nice little vacation together out of it. Of course, there’d been more to it than bookmarks: Crowley had also undone quite a few dog-eared pages, but he could never admit that to Aziraphale, who would just proclaim it a good deed. “Book readers are savage, angel. Guess where I learned that?”

“Oh, hush,” Aziraphale says, and leans to tap Crowley on the knee with his knuckle. “Didn’t you say you wanted to go see to your plants?”

“Urghhhh,” Crowley says. He did. He does. “They’re so lazy,” he says mournfully.

“They’re lovely,” Aziraphale says firmly. He’s taken a very loyal stance on behalf of the plants since the failed apocalypse.

Crowley rolls his eyes as he sobers up. Stands up slowly. “Bah. Sushi tomorrow? Usual time?”

“Perfect,” Aziraphale says, clapping him on the shoulder and turning back to the pile of books he is supposedly organizing. “Drive safe, my dear, I love you.”

Crowley stops, stops short right in front of the shop’s door. He turns slowly to look at Aziraphale, who is staring at him with very wide eyes and an open mouth. “Angel.”

“My-- Crowley,” Aziraphale says quietly, red-faced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. I’m terribly sorry.”

Crowley laughs, and he knows it sounds harsh. Cruel. No use fussing over a simple mistake, but… Yeah. “Of course you didn’t _mean_ it, why would you mean it? _Of course_ you didn’t mean it! No need to apologize, I knew before you said it that you wouldn’t _mean it_.”

Aziraphale approaches him slow, hands up. Like Crowley is a wounded animal. “Crowley, your love is… big. Like a swimming pool, or not, rather, like an ocean, like the atmosphere. And sometimes I. If I relax too much, let my guard down, let it overwhelm me, I-- But you must understand, I know we’re not-- I know you don’t. Crowley, _please_.”

Crowley blinks. Heart pounding. That puts a bit of a different spin on things. He swallows against nothing, throat dry. “Are you saying… are you saying that you know I love you?”

“Don’t patronize me, Crowley,” Aziraphale snaps. “You don’t have to-- I’m not reading too much into it. I made a mistake.”

“Why do you think we don’t-- why do you think I’m not in love with you? Do you not want--? But then why would you say--?”

“Crowley. I know it’s not like that. You would have said something!”

Crowley groans; almost doubles over, this is particularly galling. “ _Said something_. Said something! I’ve always been saying something! I can’t stop saying something! I’ve said all kinds of things! I’m all over the place, _saying something_ , and you’ve never looked twice!”

Aziraphale stares. Opens his mouth. Closes it. Steps closer. Grasps Crowley’s wrist. “Don’t,” he says, and pauses; Crowley wilts, can’t help it, can’t stop it-- and Aziraphale continues hurriedly, frantic, “Don’t leave! Don’t leave. Stay. Will you stay with me?” He takes a breath and wraps one arm around Crowley’s waist. The other around his neck. “Don’t leave,” he whispers.

Crowley stands very still, then lets his arms inch up. Lets himself wrap Aziraphale up just as thoroughly as Aziraphale has him wrapped up. “I could stay. I want to stay.”

“I love you,” Aziraphale says, with purpose this time, quietly into Crowley’s neck.

“I love you."


	2. firsts

Crowley visits exactly one week after the almost-Apocalypse. He swaggers into the bookshop, and he smirks at Aziraphale, and it could almost be normal, _almost_ , _almost_ , if his hands weren’t trembling. If he could look Aziraphale in the eye.

“My dear,” Aziraphale says. “Is something the matter?”

Crowley perches on the arm of the sofa closest the door, and Aziraphale gets the impression he’s prepared to bolt at the first opportunity. “Can we be together now?” Crowley asks abruptly, quickly, eyes on the ceiling, hands clenched into tight fists. He swallows. “I don’t know how to go slow, but I will. Once I hear you say you don’t want it, I’ll go slow, I’ll stop. But. But I have to know. Do you want. Am I…?” He exhales. Drags his eyes to meet Aziraphale’s gaze head on. “Can we be together now?”

Aziraphale opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. He is, as ever, rather swept away by Crowley’s bravery. This ability he has, this willingness to do things even while terribly frightened. To say the things that matter most, the words Aziraphale always chokes on.

Crowley stands, eyes on the door, and Aziraphale realizes he’s leaving, _leaving_ , already waving his words away, mumbling about meeting for lunch in a few days.

“Yes,” Aziraphale gasps out, and it stops Crowley leaving, _thank humanity_ , but he realizes he needs to say more, surely Crowley deserves more. “Yes,” he says again. More words come to mind but he can’t translate them into speech, can’t make himself process his thoughts. He groans.

“Yes?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says. “Together. Yes.”

“Oh,” Crowley says, breathless, wide-eyed. 

He approaches Aziraphale carefully, and it strikes Aziraphale that some kind of touch is probably appropriate in a moment like this; a soft touch, maybe a caress on the cheek or a gentle hand in Crowley’s hair. He takes a deep breath, a bracing thing, full of book dust and energy and _Crowley_ , and reaches out, but almost immediately he loses his nerve; ends up clapping Crowley on the shoulder, far more forcefully than he’d imagined. Crowley staggers back, almost tumbles over.

Aziraphale sinks down into his armchair. Covers his eyes. Perhaps Crowley will leave after all.

He doesn’t. He doesn’t mention Aziraphale’s inability to form sentences. Doesn’t mention the Gabriel-like unpleasant shoulder clap. “You want to be together now,” he says, as if he’s testing the words. As if he’s asking for confirmation.

“Yes.”

Crowley looks at him. “Yes,” he repeats, then, “Can I tempt you to a walk in the park?”

Aziraphale breathes; he’s flooded with relief; he’s back on solid ground. “Yes,” he says. “Yes.”

…

It nags at him. Thing are different, now, but also much the same: Crowley still drops by the bookshop every evening. They still drink together, dine together. The biggest change brought on by their new understanding is in Crowley himself: he seems more settled, less restless. Happier. He seems _happier_.

They still don’t touch. They don’t touch, but sometimes Crowley looks at him with something like heat, something like longing, and Aziraphale doesn’t understand why Crowley doesn’t reach out, doesn’t kiss him.

It takes over three months for Aziraphale to remember that _he_ can kiss _Crowley_. That maybe Crowley deserves to know that Aziraphale is willing to be brave for him. The realization takes his breath away: he needs to be brave in order to show Crowley how much he is valued. Loved. How awful, how _unthinkable_ , that Crowley might not realize how much he’s loved. Something must be done.

The plan is this: he’ll take Crowley to see a film, something modern and edgy. Then they’ll go to that hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant Crowley favors. Finally, he’ll ask Crowley to drive them back to the bookshop, where he’ll pour champagne and offer dessert, which he knows Crowley will decline. Then the kiss. First to the hand, and if that is well-received, the lips.

It all goes well, perfectly according to plan, until they make it back to the bookshop and Crowley smiles, genuine, _radiant_ , and Aziraphale blurts out, “I miss you so much.”

“I’m right here, angel.”

“ _I know_ ,” Aziraphale says helplessly, hands fluttering, and Crowley sways forward, presses their lips together and - _oh_. “Oh,” he says, opens his mouth, breathes Crowley in; he can’t believe he gets to do this, gets to open himself up to this, gets to be gentle, gets to cup Crowley’s cheeks, gets to run fingers through his hair.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley murmurs.

“Oh!” Aziraphale says, pulling himself back, yanking his hands away. “I was supposed to kiss you first! I was going to show you-- I had a plan!”

“A plan,” Crowley repeats, looking dazed, then smirks in that soft way of his. “Should we pretend this didn’t happen? So you can make the first move?”

But Aziraphale doesn’t like the sound of that either. “No,” he says, with a long-suffering sigh. “But you must let me say ‘I love you’ first.”

“Oh,” Crowley says, wide-eyed. Hushed. “Yeah?”

“And you are absolutely forbidden from proposing. You must let me-- you deserve to be--”

Crowley cuts him off with another kiss.


	3. post-lockdown

Aziraphale deliberates for two weeks before dialing Crowley. He’s prepared a bit of a speech, since he knows Crowley will still be asleep -- he’ll no doubt have to speak to that infuriating telephone-message-machine.

Instead, Crowley answers on the first ring; says, “Angel?” in a gravelly voice, foggy and sleep-slow, and Aziraphale’s speech flies from his head.

“Crowley,” he says uselessly.

“Trouble?” Crowley asks, fighting a yawn. Aziraphale can hear him shifting around in bed. Stretching.

“I don’t know how to break rules,” Aziraphale says in a rush, a statement so laughably false he might discorporate from sheer embarrassment. “I mean. I don’t know how to want to-- No. I mean, I don’t know how to be all right with wanting to break the rules.”

“’Ziraphale--”

“I don’t know how to want to want to break rules. I don’t know how to change that. I don’t know if I can. If I can change.”

“Everyone knows you don’t like change, angel.” He makes a small sound, frustrated, like he’s searching for words he can’t find, and Aziraphale can picture him perfectly, waving a hand around as if he could pluck what he wants to say from the air in front of him. “Bebop!” Crowley exclaims finally. “Technology! The antique waistcoat! S’all just… you. Not a big deal. Some of your quirks.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, “you say quirks because you’re being kind -- _yes_ , kind, don’t argue -- but some… maybe _most_ , would characterize these _quirks_ as something more akin to… _flaws_.”

Crowley is silent for a long moment before making a sound that falls somewhere between a cough and laugh. “Can’t be,” he says. “I only love perfect angels.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, soft, because they don’t _say it_ like that, not outright, not in so many words.

“Everyone has flaws, Aziraphale. S’all right. I promise. I promise.”

“Crowley, I… thank you. I’m. I apologize for waking you.”

“Any time,” Crowley says, and Aziraphale can _hear_ the sleepy smile. “I’ll see you when this is over.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says. “When it’s over.”

Aziraphale hangs up the telephone and takes a few minutes. To breathe. To steady the beat of his heart. To steady his hand. He picks up the telephone again. Redials.

Crowley hums into the phone. “Forget something?”

“I love you awfully,” Aziraphale says. Swallows dryly. Closes his eyes.

Crowley clears his throat. “Same,” he says. “Same.”


	4. introductions

Elaine is his favorite customer, Aziraphale thinks, and maybe that’s due to her quick wit. Maybe it’s that she looks at his precious books with a familiar reverence, but never tries to take any of them home. Maybe it’s that she comes ‘round and demands tea and cake with no thought to other customers.

Maybe it’s that she never asks questions.

Unfortunately, she does persist in aging, which means that soon he’s going to have to redirect her to a new establishment, and she’ll forget their friendship. She’ll forget he exists. 

_I’ve done it before_ , Aziraphale reminds himself, and he’ll do it again, but that doesn’t make him feel better about it. Nothing ever does. Still, he’s especially glad when one of her visits coincides with Crowley’s, because he’s never been able to introduce them before.

“This is my love, Anthony J. Crowley,” he says, and Elaine beams but Crowley goes very still, stiff as a board, and Aziraphale knows he’s gotten it wrong.

“Your love?” Crowley asks, later that night, three or four glasses in, and Aziraphale sighs.

“Yes, I know, I didn’t get it quite right. I’ll figure it out.”

He tries again a week and half later, this time with a book dealer of whom Aziraphale is less fond, but still finds useful.

“And this is Crowley, the love of my entire existence,” he says.

“Nice to meet you,” the book dealer says, politely enough.

“Your _what_?” Crowley asks, as if outraged, and yanks him away to the back room, flicking a dismissive hand at the book dealer.

“What on earth is wrong?” Aziraphale asks, frowning.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley says, rubbing at his temples. “What are you _doing_?”

“I introduced you!”

“You introduced me as-- since when do you-- _what_?”

_Oh_. Aziraphale sags a bit; he can’t help it. He didn’t know Crowley was averse to the entire idea of introductions. “Ah, well. You see, I’ve never been able to… lay claim. To you, in public. So I thought, now, it might be nice, to be able to do that. You’ve always called me angel, and I thought-- but I can see I’ve read this wrong, so I assure you, it won’t happen again.”

Aziraphale takes a step back, but Crowley follows; takes two steps forward, slowly, says, “I didn’t know you wanted to lay claim. To me. At all.”

“ _Crowley_ ,” Aziraphale says, eyes closed, mortified. “I _told you_ , after the whole business with the Antichrist. I told you, I said--”

“You said you treasure me. You said you wanted to stay close to me.”

“ _Yes_.”

“Didn’t figure you’d want me to read too much into that,” Crowley says quietly.

Aziraphale breathes in, deep; tries to steady himself. This feels like a second chance, and he didn’t even realize he’d botched the first one. “Crowley,” he says, softly. Firmly. “I love you dearly. That will never change, whether you want more from this relationship or less, whether you’d like things to be different or to stay exactly the same. I love you, and that will _never change_. However--”

“Angel--”

“Read into my words. As much as possible. If you like. If that’s something you want.”

Crowley tears his glasses from his face but fumbles them; they clatter to the floor, and Crowley looks Aziraphale in the eye. “Liked it, when you said. Your love. When you said I was yours. And you--”

Aziraphale holds his hands up, spreads them wide; it’s a giving in. It’s a surrender. It’s everything, it’s all he is. “I’m yours,” he says. “I’m yours.”


	5. expectations

Crowley can’t do it. He should be able to do it. He has permission now, permission to touch and to close the bookshop and to put hands in angel hands and hands in angel hair and even handle the first editions.

So, permission has been granted, but that doesn’t mean he can bring himself to put his face near Aziraphale’s face and kiss him on that face without waiting for some kind of go-ahead. Some kind of indication that Aziraphale hasn’t changed his mind, that he really does want this and will continue to want this for the immediate future, and _no_ , not forever, nobody is expecting forever.

“It’s not the--” Crowley says, then cuts himself off. It’s not the falling that hurts, not really. It’s the being thrown away.

“The what?” Aziraphale asks. His face is red with wine and lovely as usual and also a little puzzled.

“Managing expectations,” Crowley says, against his will. “Ugh. How many have I had?”

“Glasses or bottles?” Aziraphale asks, which is not a good sign. The books piled around the back room of the shop do appear to be swimming.

“Never mind,” Crowley says.

“You’re staring at me,” Aziraphale says, some indeterminate amount of time later.

“M’not,” Crowley says. He is. Highly enjoyable, if a bit fraught. “You just happen to be sitting in my staring space.

Aziraphale peers at him over his glasses. “Would you like me to move?”

“Angel,” Crowley says, wounded. “Would you really ruin my staring space like that?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, stern because he’s embarrassed, embarrassed and _pleased_ ; it’s Crowley’s favorite, it’s beautiful. Beautiful. “Come to me. Please.”

And that’s easy, a direct command, so he sort-of-stands and lurches himself at Aziraphale; lets himself curl up in Aziraphale’s lap; watches as Aziraphale closes his book. Sets it aside. Must be serious. “Sometimes I make the shop invisible to humans,” he blurts out. “I never tell you.”

“I think you just did,” Aziraphale says gently, then, “Sometimes I sneak into your flat and read Neruda to the plants.”

“I knew it,” Crowley mutters.

“I imagine reading to you, instead.”

“What, really?”

Aziraphale sighs. “Will you tell me why I just watched you drink thrice your body weight in alcohol?”

Hmm. Crowley shrugs. “I think I was going for liquid courage.”

“And did it work out?”

“Didn’t. I think I have liquid anxiety.”

“Ah,” says Aziraphale. “An unpleasant affliction, to be sure.” He takes a deep breath, then another. “For many years, I have imagined you, like this. Just like this. Sometimes I’m afraid you don’t realize just how much I--”

“You don’t have to,” Crowley says. Pats him on the knee.

“ _Crowley_. You don’t understand. This feeling never changes. Has never changed. When you’re far from me, I want you close. When you’re close to me, I want you closer. _Crowley_. Whatever it is you think you need courage to ask for-- I assure you, it is already yours. It’s all already yours.”

“Aziraphale--”

“I would like you to have-- to have high expectations.” Aziraphale waves one hand through the air, as if he has more to say but can’t find the words, and his face is red, not with wine, not this time, and Crowley’s stupid heart won’t _stop_.

“Kiss me,” Crowley says, quickly. “Kiss me, be the one to kiss me, til I’m able to. To be the one to kiss you. Will you?”

“ _Darling_ ,” Aziraphale says, and doesn’t hesitate, not for a second, presses their lips together, makes a beautiful sound, perfect; Crowley is getting choked up but there are tears on Aziraphale’s face too, and maybe they’re in this together. Maybe Crowley’s not the only one here.

“Read to me,” Crowley says, demanding, commanding, with a smirk.

Aziraphale _beams_. “Yes,” he says. “Anything.”


End file.
